Ways to check if your home has aluminum wiring or dissimilar metals in it:

1. If your home is built sometime in the 60s, it is highly likely it has aluminum wiring.

2. Call the city or county jurisdiction you live in. Their records department should know when your home was built & possibility what type of wiring.

3. For the “brave souls” put on some good insulated gloves on, kill the main disconnect to your panel, pull off the cover to panel and look to see if the circuits of the house are wired in aluminum or copper. Enter at your own risk!

4. With power off, pull out some outlets & switches on the main level of the home, to see if the aluminum wire is connected to the device. Keep in mind, where you will see the mixture is the stairway to the basement. This is where the old aluminum is joined to the new copper.

5. Don’t forgot to check your sub-panels too in your larger home.

6. Next time, you have a electrical contractor over to your home, ask them if you have dissimilar metals in your home.

7. You could also ask your neighbor to see if they know what their house was wired in and the year built.

8. Call us to have us look for you!

Symptoms of Aluminum Wiring or Dissimilar Metals In Your Home:

1. Burning smell could happen with a dimmer switch. The smell is like a carbon but mechanical smell. It is so strong you can taste it. It reminds you of a vacuum belt burning, but not so rubbery smelling.

2. If it is to a point you can smell it, taste it in the air & then you touch it and it is super hot to the touch of your skin. That is called a hot spot. This needs immediate electrical assistance.

3. You hear a crackling and snapping affect, which happens when you turn off or on a switch or plug into an outlet.

These symptoms are not good! Contact us and we would be glad to help you with the next step to solving aluminum to copper connection problem in your home!